Chicago-based Hostway, a Web site hosting company, has lined up US$110 million in its first round of outside investment. New backers include New York-based private-equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson, New York-based hedge fund Fortress Investment LLC, Boston-based investor Regimental Capital and Arizona-based Phoenix Life.

Hostway hosts Web sites and various computer applications for companies and provides backup systems from data centres in Chicago; Austin, Texas; Tampa, Fla.; Vancouver, British Columbia; Germany and South Korea. Customers include Wikipedia, Fox News, SK Telecom of Korea and about 400,000 small-business customers around the world.